Kenneth Lonergan Quotes

#1. Some actors really like to do only a few, some like Casey [Affleck] will do as many takes as there is electrical power. At some point, you'll say, "Listen, I think it's really good." And he'll say, "You sure? You sure? There's not some other way we should try it?"

Kenneth Lonergan

#2. There's a few people who I've accumulated over the years who I really trust to show a first cut to and to be helpful rather than unhelpful.

Kenneth Lonergan

#3. Teenagers all think their life is a movie. If you break up with someone or you have a fight, you walk around with movie scores playing in your head. You sort of see yourself suffering as you're suffering. There's a lot of melodrama attached to the real events of your life.

Kenneth Lonergan

#4. I still haven't quite caught on to the idea of writing without dialogue. I like writing dialogue, and there's nothing wrong with dialogue in movies.

Kenneth Lonergan

#5. I feel like if you can describe something fully and accurately, then people will be able to see it themselves - they don't need be told what to.

Kenneth Lonergan

#6. I actually think storyboards are great. I don't draw well enough to do them myself. I've only used storyboards a couple of times.

Kenneth Lonergan

#7. Little kids grow up discovering the world that's shown to them and then when you become a teenager, it kind of shrinks a little bit. I think when you get past that point, one of the important things is that you see there is more to the world than yourself.

Kenneth Lonergan

#8. I like to let the actors work the way they want to.

Kenneth Lonergan

#9. When you have people like Casey [Affleck] and Michelle Williams and they want to do more takes you don't say, "Sorry, that's it." And I also don't like to say, "It's fine, it's great." Unless it's clearly there.

Kenneth Lonergan

#10. I was nearly a teen-ager before I stopped assuming that everyone I met was Jewish.

Kenneth Lonergan

#11. I grew up going to the movies, not watching them on television, so I'm still a bit resistant to TV as a medium.

Kenneth Lonergan

#12. I'm always struck when I go somewhere I've never been before, especially if it's in my home town, by just how different the atmosphere can be, and how disorienting it can be - especially if there's any kind of trouble.

Kenneth Lonergan

#13. I wrote a play once called 'Lobby Hero,' which I thought turned out very well, but there's no final version of it. I published the one we produced, but there are seven other versions with different variations sitting in my desk at home.

Kenneth Lonergan

#14. Filmmaking, like any other art, is a very profound means of human communication; beyond the professional pleasure of succeeding or the pain of failing, you do want your film to be seen, to communicate itself to other people.

Kenneth Lonergan

#15. I often find myself writing about people taking care of each other, or trying to. And often seem to write about situations that are too big for the characters.

Kenneth Lonergan

#16. There's something about the impact of a big screen that means something to me, even though I realize almost every film is fated to be seen for a year in theaters, and then forever after on television.

Kenneth Lonergan

#17. You can shoot a film in New York without seeing the Empire State Building. Or Starbucks ... although the latter is much less realistic.

Kenneth Lonergan

#18. It's not a character flaw to become an adult.

Kenneth Lonergan